In bygone days when news traveled slowly and records were kept poorly, you have to wonder how many serial killers got away with their crimes completely just by traveling from town to town. But occasionally someone connected the dots, as in the case that became known as "the French Ripper." The 1897 murder of 13-year-old shepherd Pierre Laurent piqued the interest of French detective Émile Fourquet (pictured).
Fourquet was an investigating magistrate, working in the market town of Belley, near Aix-les-Bains in the foothills of the Alps. When he read about the murder of the shepherd boy in the local press, it reminded him of the similar killing of Victor Portalier, aged 16, two years earlier in Bénonces, some 30 km away – the case had been closed unsolved. Fourquet immediately sent for the file and soon discovered some striking similarities: both shepherd boys had been stalked by their assailant, who might have been a vagabond. They were both killed by a deep cut to the throat and their bodies were defiled after death. He also found a letter from another magistrate suggesting a connection between the Portalier case and that of the murder of 17-year-old woodcutter’s daughter Augustine Mortureux, also in 1895. Despite the similarities, it was not thought that all these crimes could have been committed by a single hand. However, in Fourquet’s mind a pattern began to form. After receiving the details of seven cases, he began his meticulous research that would prove the links. The newspapers started referring to the potential murderer as the ‘new’ Jack the Ripper.
After sending his research to all 250 French magistrates, the entire nation was on the lookout for the killer. Read the story of who the French Ripper was and how he was captured at Victorian Supersleuth. -via Strange Company